Our Insights on eDiscovery

Read on to learn more about the latest trends and insights in the world of digital discovery.
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eDiscovery Case Law: Deliberately Produce Wrong Cell Phone, Get Sanctioned
 eDiscovery Case Law: Deliberately Produce Wrong Cell Phone, Get Sanctioned 150 150 CloudNine

In Moreno v. Ostly, the California Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s award of monetary sanctions imposed against the plaintiff and her law firm in the amount of $13,500 for counsel and plaintiff’s discovery misconduct related to the preservation of text messages.

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Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Evaluating Quality
 Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Evaluating Quality 150 150 CloudNine

Yesterday, we talked about evaluating service-provider pricing. That, of course, is just part of the picture. You need a service provider that can and does provide high-quality work that meets your expectations.

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Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Evaluating Price
 Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Evaluating Price 150 150 CloudNine

When you are looking for help with handling discovery materials, there are hundreds of service providers to choose from. It’s important that you choose one that can meet your schedule, has fair pricing and does high-quality work. But there are other things you should look at as well. In the next few blogs in this series, we’re going to discuss what you should be looking at when you evaluate a service provider. Note that these points are not covered in order of importance. The importance of any single evaluation point will vary from case to case and will depend on things like the type of service you are looking for, the duration of the project, the complexity of the project, and the size of the project. Let’s start with Price.

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eDiscovery Trends: Despite What NY Times Says, Lawyers Not Going Away
 eDiscovery Trends: Despite What NY Times Says, Lawyers Not Going Away 150 150 CloudNine

There was a TV commercial in the mid-80’s where a soap opera actor delivered the line “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV”. A few days ago, The New York Times published an article entitled “Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software” which discussed how, using ‘artificial intelligence, “e-discovery” software can analyze documents in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost’. The article goes on to discuss whether this will precipitate a march to the unemployment line for scores of attorneys.

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eDiscovery Case Law: Spoliate Evidence, Don’t Go to Jail, but Pay a Million Dollars
 eDiscovery Case Law: Spoliate Evidence, Don’t Go to Jail, but Pay a Million Dollars 150 150 CloudNine

As previously referenced in eDiscovery Daily, defendant Mark Pappas, President of Creative Pipe, Inc., was ordered by Magistrate Judge Paul W. Grimm to “be imprisoned for a period not to exceed two years, unless and until he pays to Plaintiff the attorney’s fees and costs that will be awarded to Plaintiff as the prevailing party”. However, ruling on the defendants’ appeal, District Court Judge Marvin J. Garbis declined to adopt the order regarding incarceration, stating: “[T]he court does not find it appropriate to Order Defendant Pappas incarcerated for future possible failure to comply with his obligation to make payment…”. So, how much is he ordered to pay? Now we know.

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Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Introduction
 Working Successfully with eDiscovery and Litigation Support Service Providers: Introduction 150 150 CloudNine

If you work in a law firm or a corporate legal department, there will be times when you turn to a service provider to help with handling discovery materials — regardless of the technology and staff resources that you have. You might look to a service provider to handle work that your department doesn’t do. Or maybe your own resources are tied up and you just need more capacity. How to select the right provider, communicate effectively with that provider and ensuring high quality work (on time and on budget) are just some of the questions will be addressing in this new blog series.

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eDiscovery Case Law: No Sanctions for Scrubbing Computers Assumed to be Imaged
 eDiscovery Case Law: No Sanctions for Scrubbing Computers Assumed to be Imaged 150 150 CloudNine

When scrubbing data from a computer drive related to litigation, it’s a good idea to make absolutely sure that there is another copy of that data, via backup or forensic image. Don’t just take someone’s word for it. In Federal Trade Commission v. First Universal Lending, the FTC investigated the defendants for their mortgage modification practices by alleging that defendants had violated the Federal Trade Commission Act and that defendants had acted in violation of the Telemarketing Sales Rule. For the duration of the investigation, the court appointed a temporary receiver who took control of defendants’ business premises.

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eDiscovery Best Practices: No Bates, No Problem for Native Files
 eDiscovery Best Practices: No Bates, No Problem for Native Files 150 150 CloudNine

As today’s document collections are almost entirely electronic in a format used by the native application (i.e., “native files”), it has become more commonplace to produce those original native files to opposing counsel in eDiscovery. Producing the native files saves costs in converting the files to be produced to an image format (either TIFF or PDF) before production. And, for the recipients of a production, receiving native files enables them to also receive the metadata associated with those files (as it is contained within the files themselves). However, it seems to “upset the legal apple cart” when attorneys have to contemplate applying Bates numbers to native files.

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eDiscovery Trends: Facebook’s Self-Collection Mechanism
 eDiscovery Trends: Facebook’s Self-Collection Mechanism 150 150 CloudNine

One of the most enlightening revelations resulting from my interview with Craig Ball at LegalTech (published last Friday) was regarding a feature that he mentioned which Facebook added late last year that allows any user to download their information. I thought it was such a significant bit of information that a post dedicated to the feature (in addition to the coverage in the interview) was warranted. This feature is available via the Account Settings menu and enables users to collect their wall posts, friends lists, photos, videos, messaging, and any other personal content, save it into a Zip file and download the Zip file.

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eDiscovery Trends: Craig Ball of Craig D. Ball, P.C.
 eDiscovery Trends: Craig Ball of Craig D. Ball, P.C. 150 150 CloudNine

Today’s thought leader is Craig Ball. Craig is a prolific contributor to continuing legal and professional education programs throughout the United States, having delivered over 600 presentations and papers. Craig’s articles on forensic technology and electronic discovery frequently appear in the national media, including in American Bar Association, ATLA and American Lawyer Media print and online publications. He also writes a monthly column on computer forensics and e-discovery for Law Technology News called “Ball in your Court,” honored as both the 2007 and 2008 Gold Medal honoree as “Best Regular Column” as awarded by Trade Association Business Publications International. It’s also the 2009 Gold and 2007 Silver Medalist honoree of the American Society of Business Publication Editors as “Best Contributed Column” and their 2006 Silver Medalist honoree as “Best Feature Series” and “Best Contributed Column.”” The presentation, “PowerPersuasion: Craig Ball on PowerPoint,” is consistently among the top rated continuing legal educational programs from coast-to-coast.

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